Obama’s Pickup Basketball Game in Adams Morgan

From the department of irrational exuberance:

All over you can read stories of how Obama spent the weekend before being sworn in. Watching the Obamas pretend to like the music of Garth Brooks was perhaps my favorite moment. But still, one detail actually, irrationally, kinda chokes me up: Obama went to Adams Morgan (racially mixed, east of Rock Creek Park, kinda hipster) and played some pickup basketball at the Marie H. Reed Community Learning Center.

This is a man who believes in cities, who uses cities (and knows cities can be used), and who understands the importance of having vital, strong, community-minded urban centers.

Without data in front of me, I’d bet just about anything that Bush hardly went out to eat in DC, let alone went for a walk in the city, just to be a part of it, to feel that urban pulse.

We are about to have a President who actually believes in and cares about urban growth and renewal.